Simon: G’Day guys, and welcome to another episode of The Mindful Men Podcast. I’m your host, Simon Rinne, and today we’re getting mindful about living a mindful life in terms of things like work and satisfaction, meaningful experiences, relationships, and also mindset.

Simon: And joining me today, I’ve got Billy Lahr, who’s coming at us from Seoul in South Korea.

How you going, Billy?

Billy: I’m doing well. Thanks for having me.

Welcome

Simon: I’m really pumped for this conversation. I love talking about mindfulness. you know, Mindful Men is all about mindfulness, but also mindfulness from a life perspective, not so much just the, therapeutic approaches as well. so, I’m really keen to, explore your understanding of mindfulness and you are the host of the Mindful Midlife Crisis, which has, comes at a good time in my life as well, you know, moving into Mindful Men therapies from my old career. and your podcast is about helping people to navigate the complexities and possibilities of life’s second half.

Talking men’s mental health

Billy: Yeah. We, we dive into a lot of topics. So, we talk a about mindfulness, of course, and social emotional learning. But then we also bring people on that talk about relationships, marriages, raising children.

We talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion. We talk about all forms of wellness, whether it’s emotional wellness, whether it’s physical wellness. We’ll have personal trainers on to talk about that. It’s just kind of trying to bring more awareness to how we are living our lives and how can we live our lives just maybe even 1% better each and every single day.

And in doing that, we experience more purpose in our life. We experience more gratitude in our life. We experience more awareness that allows us to have these somatic experiences. That really just liven up our body and liven up our mind and, and liven up on our, our relationships. I try to find a diverse group of guests so we can talk about a wide range of experiences and it’s been a lot of fun and it’s been more of a chronicling, I would say, of my own journey.

 I started it in February of 2021 with my co-host Brian on the Bass, and I’ve gone solo with it now just because Brian didn’t have the same time to commit to it that, that I did. And this is my thing now. Like, doing this podcast is very much my thing and it feels like this podcast is very much your thing.

And I just want to commend you for bringing the conversation around mental health to the forefront, especially for men, because one of the episodes that we did, or actually one of the first solo episodes that I did was a response to a comment that I saw on Instagram where someone had said, no more men talking mental health on podcasts.

And that rubbed me the wrong way, and I had something to say about that.

Simon: What do you think prompted them to say that?

Billy: My understanding, the context around it, I believe was this person was addressing the hustle, bro, toxic culture, right? Which I am 100% against.

I, I do not believe in that toxic hustle bro culture. One time I saw somebody post something like, I don’t take breaks on the weekends because that’s 104 days where your competition can get the best of you. And I’m like, right. And I don’t sleep because that’s eight hours a day times 365 where my competition can be getting the best of me too.

I’m like, get the fuck outta here with that kind of toxic bro bullshit. That, that’s just drives me nuts when I see stuff like that. But her statement was in response to this guy talking about just some things that people could do or some things that he does. And I think her complaint to it was that nothing that he was saying was super original.

Like he was saying, get eight hours of sleep. He was talking about the books he reads and she was like, oh, eight hours of sleep, real original. It’s like, well, but those are the hits. Like, like everybody says, eight hours of sleep is so crucial to your own mental health and so few people get the recommended number of hours of sleep.

And it was so condescending the way that she was addressing all of it. And I think what really startled me was the number of people who thought, yeah, yeah, you’re right. Tell these men to stop talking about mental health. And I, I understand that maybe it was a response to mansplaining and that kind of thing.

I get that. And I, I get the, the idea that men have been holding the pulpit on too many topics for far too long, but mental health is not one of ’em. Mental health is not an area where men have really done a lot of discussion.

 so, when she said that, it felt like a direct shot to me as someone who hosts a podcast that that has a lot of discussions around mental health. So, I just wanted, and I responded to it in a way, just saying, hey, I’d like to have you on the show to talk about this. Why did you make this comment? I want to understand this better because is there some context that I’m missing from your point of view?

So, it wasn’t an attack on her saying that you are wrong. It was more of these reflective questions. Like, tell me more. Tell me more. You know, she hosts a, a YouTube channel that talks about finances for millennials. And I mean, her content is actually really amazing.

But I was really surprised that she went down that road because they do talk about even mental health and how that impacts finances. It just rubbed me the wrong way and I, I wanted to invite her onto the show and not as like, to sabotage her in any way. Just to have a conversation around why would you think that would be okay to say you have a huge following?

Why would you think, you know, perpetuating the stigma and shame that men feel around mental health would be a good idea. So, I don’t know if she’s listened to the episode. I imagine not, but I hope someday it does get to her and I hope someday we can have that conversation.

Simon: Yeah, it’s, it’s an interesting one because, you’re right. So many guys really struggle with mental health discussions. and you know, rightly so, I think for many of us, myself included, growing up in a period of time where, to be a boy and what it was to become a man. And to be a man was someone who bottled things up and didn’t talk about things and was a bit of a hard nut.

And, you know, didn’t cry, didn’t show vulnerability. And what we’re seeing now is a lot of guys who are struggling with how to process that, those emotions and feelings in a healthy way. we think of even just like family domestic violence data in Australia particularly, 75% of victims report men being the perpetrators or males being the perpetrators of the family violence.

And, even in suicide data in Australia is 75% of deaths by suicide are men. And, so what that tells me is, you know, what we’re talking about is that we do struggle to talk about things and in a healthy way. but it’s just great that there are guys out there willing to talk about and share their stories, yourself included.

and part of the reason I do it is both a therapeutic approach for me. The more I talk about it, the more I feel comfortable doing it as well. it’s kind of like a therapy session for me, but I’m talking to myself often or talking to a guest. but also love hearing guests and, and, and like your podcast as well, having a diverse range of guests because I think when the more diversity, we can have both men and women, then we can become more mindful of who we are and how we’re showing up in all aspects of our lives and see life in different perspectives.

cause when we start to understand different perspectives of life, we can start to grow as men and be more comfortable in multiple areas, whether or not that’s work, relationships, finances, as we just talked about, social circles, mental health, physical health as well, because it’s often the intertwined between those two.

So, yeah. Interesting story there.

Reframing the idea of tough

Billy: You know, I was going to say, and I think your audience would appreciate this too, because I imagine that you have quite the audience in, in Australia. One of my heroes is Henry Rollins. And Henry Rollins is just one of the biggest bad asses of all time. And he was in Australia years ago doing a tour, and he ended up doing like a six-episode podcast called Tough Conversations.

So, people want to check out Tough Conversations with Henry Rollins. What he did was he was going to various places in the Australian Outback and having conversations with men around, Mental health and he was saying that he was trying to redefine this idea of tough. The guys that he talks to have some really powerful stories.

You know, I remember one was about like what it was like to be a gay man in the Australian outback, I can’t remember some of the other stories, but I, I know that mental health was a huge component of that and I just really liked how Henry was reframing this idea of tough, when it came to what we think of, and even what I think of, of like a tough Australian man from the Outback, that sort of thing.

Simon: Yeah, definitely. I’ll put the link in the show notes because I haven’t heard it myself, so I’m keen to check it out and I’m sure other people would as well. I wanted to explore a bit about your backstory and, where you’re from because I, obviously anyone watching this on YouTube would, would realize perhaps not from South Korea.

and you don’t certainly talk with a South Korean accent unless you’ve watched a lot of American TV in your time. but yeah, tell us where you, where you grew up and kind of what led you towards, I guess, a life on the road.

Billy’s Backstory

Billy: Yeah, I grew up in Minnesota, which borders Canada, in United States.

And I’ve lived in Minnesota my whole life, born and raised there. And I taught English for 15 years, and then I transitioned into a Dean of student’s position and I was in that position for, for six years. And I would say right around 2012, I really started struggling with my mental health. Now there were things that were leading up to this, particularly some relationships that went bad.

 I would say that I was in an emotionally abusive relationship with someone who was extremely manipulative. I always say that that’s my side of the story. She probably has her side of the story, but it, it left me emotionally damaged. there was definitely some residue from that relationship that continued to creep in and was never really resolved as I was navigating these situations in my classroom, and I was working in an alternative level classroom, meaning students were coming to me with a lot of social, emotional, academic barriers to their learning. And because I wasn’t in a great place,

my toxic negativity was washing over them and their toxic negativity was washing over me.

And it was really this, oh, this sea of negativity in my own classroom and I couldn’t escape it. Sunday nights were absolutely the worst night for me because I just couldn’t sleep because I knew it was going to be five more days of hell before I got a chance to get out of the classroom again. And I remember probably around February of, of 2013, I’d been struggling with anxiety attacks

and my neck was in pain during that time too, and I imagine that was related, but I was struggling with anxiety attacks, just couldn’t sleep. And I was having suicidal ideation as well. was, I was in a pretty dark place at that time. I remember kind of what the barometer was for my depression.

So, I can vividly remember walking around the school and if I had an image of a gun to my head, then I knew I was having a bad day. And on the rare occasions, if I envisioned the trigger being pulled, then and that would happen. Right? So, I would say more often than not, I would envision a, a day with a gun to my head, and then from time to time I would envision days where I would pull it. Now this is weird, but I honestly think one of the things that saved me was my fomo. Like, well, if I die, I’m going to miss out on this event, this event, this event. So, it was actually kind of nice to have things to look forward to as I continued on.

cause I’m a pretty social person, but I remember the turning point, was in February of 2013. And it gets cold in Minnesota, particularly come February, you’re done with winter, you’re done with the cold. And we were having a, like a, I hate winter birthday party for a friend of ours.

And I was really looking forward to hanging out with this group of friends. I hadn’t seen them in a while. And I said, okay, at seven o’clock I’m going to leave and I’ll make my way. I’ll get to the party like around 7 30, 8 o’clock. And for whatever reason, I still remember this is that 6 :51, I started having this anxiety attack.

And the anxiety attack felt like a boa constrictor wrapping around me. And when I would get anxiety attacks, I would lurch my shoulders forward, I would crinkle up my hands. I could feel my breathing begin to, elevate. And so, you know, it just wiped me out emotionally and physically. And I sent a text message to my friend and I said, you know what? I’m not feeling well. I’m not going to make it tonight. Sorry. And then I woke up the next day and I was like, what the hell is wrong with me? It’s a weekend. I should be able to relax on the weekend. Why am I still feeling like this? So, I was talking to my best friend who just so happens to have his PhD in neuropsychology, and he’s like, you need to go see someone based on what you’re telling me.

You need to go and talk to a therapist like yesterday. I’m so fortunate that literally around the corner from my building where I lived, there was a psychology office right there. And so, I looked up and I sent him, a list of people and said, you know me, you know what I need. Find me the therapist that’s going to be the best match for me. And he introduced me to someone named Mindy Ben Dixon. And I, I’m in forever indebted to Mindy Ben Dixon for helping me navigate that anxiety and that depression and, the suicidal ideation. And we did that through mindfulness because I told her that I didn’t want to use medication.

And she said, well, we’re going to start off with mindfulness. And that was my introduction to it. So, we, we did that for, you know, a few months. I was going twice a month and I did that for six months. And then summer vacation rolled around and I was like, well, you know, if some mindfulness is good, then maybe a little bit more is even better.

And so, I ramped up my practice to maybe about two or three times a day where I, I would listen to the Mark Williams. YouTube meditations.

And I just found myself being able to dial into the somatic experience of my anxiety attacks. So, I was able to identify where I could feel them in my body, and then keep them there. As I was able to breathe into those situations, I would do a lot, a lot of self-talk.

Like, hey, you’re having an anxiety attack and you know that because you can feel it in your stomach right now, so let’s keep it here. And I would do this when I was teaching, you know, I’d be up at the whiteboard talking about, Romeo and Juliet, and having an anxiety attack.

And doing this self-monologue while still teaching and saying, hey, let’s keep this here. Let’s get students working. Let’s go back to our desk and let’s just kind of breath into this so that we can manage this so that you don’t project it on a students like you have been for the last few years. And I remember probably around October or November of, maybe 20 13, 1 of my students said, you know, Mr. Lahr, you, you look like you’re in a better mood this year. And that was it. it was so palpable that the students in my classroom felt it. So just makes me think like, man, what was I bringing in before that? Like, what energy could they feel for me before that? And now they see that I’m less stressed, that I’m, that I’m happier right now.

And I mean, was I still getting stressed? Yes. Did I still have anxiety attacks? Yes. But it, wasn’t as intense as it was then. And as I continued my mindfulness practice in really starting to feel mentally well, it was incredible. Like I was feeling mentally well, which was a feeling that I hadn’t felt in quite some time.

I thought to myself, I want to give this back to people. Like I want people to experience this as well. And so, I started taking some mindfulness courses and I got a mindful Educators Essentials course that I took where I could teach mindfulness to my students. And ever since then, I’ve tried to incorporate more and more mindfulness in not only to my life, but into other people’s lives too.

Now, Recently, actually within like the last month, I enrolled in a mindful teacher certification program. So, I’m going through that right now. And if there are people out there who are like, this dude practices mindfulness, this guy is one of the most intense people I’ve ever heard in my entire life. Like, I practice mindfulness so that I can be at this level of intensity because if I didn’t practice mindfulness, I would be completely obnoxious.

 So, my mindfulness practice actually reigns in that energy so that even though I am high energy, I’m not running in the red, like I’m not running outta control, I’m not burning myself out, I’m running at high energy. And then I use mindfulness to kind of replenish that. So, I tell people, not only has mindfulness changed my life, but it most likely saved my life as well.

And so, my goal here with the Mindful Midlife Crisis Podcast is just to help people develop awareness around where it is that they’re maybe struggling or they’re feeling adversity or they’re feeling stress, they’re feeling anxious in their lives that maybe they’re not even aware of. And then to bring awareness to that and then creed some sort of response as opposed to a reaction to that emotion, to that feeling.

And one of the things that I’ve been doing here now in, in Korea is I’ve been leading virtual mindfulness sessions with some of the meetup groups, and that’s really been quite rewarding. And you know, they’re just small groups right now, but I get a lot of buy-in with the people who show up, and I feel like it’s eventually going to, to grow into something.

One of the people already said, hey, I have a women’s group that I know would be interested in this, they want to connect with you. And that’s kind of my hope is that once I become a certified mindfulness teacher, is that I can bring these mindfulness exercises to more people who maybe relate to my story.

There’s a lot of mindfulness teachers out there, but a lot of ’em, a lot of ’em already kind of have this chill, tranquil vibe about them. And I’d like to kind of be the high energy mindfulness guy that’s like, hey, those of you who, whose mind’s race and are, you know, you’re, you’re always going a hundred miles an hour.

Come, come practice mindfulness with me and we’ll go to speed limit. You know, we’ll still get places, but we’ll get there a little bit slower, a little bit more intentionally. We’ll enjoy the ride a little bit more. And listen, I’m definitely a destination guy. I was telling you that before I got on here, I booked all of my, my travels for the next like two months.

So, I, if you ask me where I’m going to be in January and February, I can tell you, like, I can tell you by the day where I’m going to be, but I’m also creating flexibility within that structure. And that’s something that I’m also trying to teach people too, is that it’s okay to have structure I feel like that gets a bad rap.

And I know we’re going to talk about that a little bit later, but you can have structure and then allow flexibility within that structure. And so, if there are people out there who are like, yeah, I can relate to this guy’s intensity, I can relate to this guy’s energy, I can relate to this need for control, this need for seeing results.

How do you, then, you know, be more mindful of that feeling so that you can enjoy the process? Listen, I’m working through it right now and I’d love to help people work through it as well.

Simon: what a story and, and thank you for being so open and honest. I feel like mental health is a bit of a mask.

You, put on a mask like you were, with the students and they didn’t really know what was going on. But once you take off the mask and start accepting some of this stuff that’s happening to you and inside of you, and you start a process of recovery, whether it’s mindfulness or, some other type of recovery, you can really just let that mask drop down to the floor and people can see, like your students could see that you were happier.

You know, that next year. I, I’m interested to know during the year before that, and you weren’t so happy, like how were you coping through it? was there something in your life that you were using as a coping strategy?

Coping with Mental Health challenges

Billy: I, I don’t think any more so much at that point. Like, I definitely wasn’t drinking like I used to when I was in my twenties, But I think more of it was just, maybe just pride and arrogance. That, I’m the one who’s right. What I’m doing is right and this is how my classroom should be and this is how my life situation should be.

And I was unbending. And, and that’s definitely feedback that I’ve gotten in the past about how inflexible I am and as people are like, well dude, you just planned out your next two months. Like that’s not a lot of flexibility. Right, but I like to create that structure and then have the flexibility within that structure, because that actually gives me joy.

It gives me a little sense of security. It gives me a little sense of stability. And especially now since I’ve been traveling here going on two years, the one thing that I really do miss is that sense of, of stability. But kind of going back to your question, the idea that you couldn’t tell me anything.

That is, that is probably how I coped with it. That it’s not my problem, it’s your problem. So, it reminds me of that, that Marilyn Monroe quote that I hate so much about, you know, I’m, I’m this, I’m this, I’m this. If you can’t handle me when I’m at my worst, you don’t deserve me when I’m at my best.

And it’s like, mm, how about you stop being an asshole? Like, why not work on yourself so that you’re not this, this, and this? Like, I, I can accept that those are some of the qualities that you bring to the conversation that you bring to the table so that now that you’re aware of it, are there things that you can do in order to work on those things so that you can grow, I always talk about on the show, reflect, learn, grow.

And, that’s what I had to do. I had to reflect on what it was that was bringing up a lot of this negativity in my life. But more importantly, because I didn’t have a coping strategy, I had to learn to develop strategies. So, I had to bring awareness to myself that, hey, you’re not handling the stress well the way that you’ve been handling the stress, which is just to run with the attitude that it’s not my problem, it’s not working.

So how can we turn that internally and reflect on who we are and, and make progress so that you can live a happier life cause you’re not happy. Right now.

Simon: And it’s that self-realization moment that a lot of people struggle to come to but I find once they come to that moment, they recognize that change is needed, that’s when they’re, they’re picking up the phone to a psychologist or a counsellor or, their doctor, or even just a friend and saying, something’s not quite right here. We need to have a chat about certain things. You mentioned you’ve been on the road for two years now. What, prompted you to leave that old, stable job where so many people are struggling? And I’ve been there previously before I started Mindful Men the therapy business, what prompted you to give that up and hit the road?

Billy: Yeah. I’ve always wanted to travel overseas. I’m not married, I don’t have children. I don’t have any intention of having children and I could take or leave marriage. So that doesn’t make me a suitable mate, until, you know, so I kind of have a different, I have a different you know, perception of, of that kind of, of lifestyle.

So, you know, ladies, if you’re listening and you’re looking to settle down, I might not be your guy, but if you’re up for adventure, hit me up, then we can have a great time. But, you know, I’ve always wanted to do this traveling and as an educator, I could take a one-year leave of absence and then my job would be guaranteed if I went back to it.

And the only thing that was keeping me back was I had a dog at that time and she was getting older and I kind of said, when she crosses the Rainbow Bridge, then I’m going to start making arrangements to take this leave. So, she passed away in April of 2020, and then I was like, okay, it’s time for me to, to make my move here.

And so, it gave me a full year to plan this trip. Now we’re in the midst of Covid at this time. So, as I was planning this trip, originally what I wanted to do was go to Thailand for a month, go to Singapore for a week, go to Japan for six weeks, and then go to South Korea for six weeks. So that was my original plan.

None of those countries were open. So, I ended up going to Portugal for two months. It’s my Favorite country. There are no bluer skies in the entire world. I absolutely loved being in Portugal. And then I did two weeks in Spain and I took a trip from Madrid to Dakar Senegal, because it’s one of my goals to paddleboard off the coast of every continent.

 . So, when I come to Australia, hopefully you have a spare bedroom there so I can make my way over to the coast and, and rent a paddleboard and, and chalk off Australia. But then, then I went back to the states. I tried to go to Thailand, but their Covid regulations were still in flux. So, I ended up going to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico because I wanted to go someplace that was cheap, had mountains, had ocean, had metro transit, and Puerto Vallarta is what popped up when I put all of those things into Google, it was, it was kind of funny.

I was like, oh, okay. and I wanted somewhere warm too. So, I put those five things into Google and Puerto Vallarta is what popped up. And I’m like, all right, I can handle that. And I was there for a month and then I came over to Korea in April of, of 2022, and I was in Seoul for a month. And then I went to Jeju Island and I went to Busan.

When I left Seoul, I was talking to my Airbnb host who turned out to be just a great dude. He’s one of the best people I’ve ever met. He and I are now friends because he’s just, he’s just such a wonderful human being. And we were having this conversation the day that I left and I told him, I feel like if I leave Seoul right now, and I, I don’t come back, that I am closing the chapter on a book that’s not finished yet.

And he was like, wow. So, I told him, listen, if I can change my flight, and you have room, I’m coming back. So, all of that worked out. And I came back to Seoul for, an extra month and I just continued making all of these connections with people. Like originally when I, when I was in Seoul for the first 10 days, like I was one of the first tourists here because they had just opened up.

And like one of my strategies for meeting people when I’m in another country is just eavesdropping on conversations and trying to find English being spoken. Well, no English was being spoken. And on the subway, you don’t talk. When you’re in, in Seoul, like you are on the subway, you’re either looking at your phone or reading or you’re sitting quietly.

So, it felt very sterile and I was like, I hate it here. Like I’m not connecting with anybody. Well, then I got joined up with this meetup group and they went hiking, and after that, my whole life changed. And I talk about that in summer session six. So, people want to check out that episode. It’s a conversation with my friend Iggy Lee, who’s the one who coordinated that group.

And that, that just changed my whole experience when I was in Seoul. And then when I went back to Seoul later that, that trip in June, I just continued to meet more and more people and getting connected to those people. So much so that I just decided, you know what, I’m going to go back to the United States and I’m going to sell my condo, and I’m going to keep traveling for another year.

I’m going to go back to go back to Seoul for three months, and then I’m, I’m going to do this trip that I originally planned. So that’s why I’m going to Thailand and I’m going to Singapore, and I’m going to go to Japan for two months, and then I’m going to come back to Seoul. And it’s kind of just like, you know, this, this world tour that I’m on right now and, and the connections that I’ve made here have made me feel more like myself than at any point in time in my life.

I feel so accepted here for who I am. I feel so welcome here. I’ve been asked to be an organizer for the Meetup group, so that’s why I’ve been doing the mindfulness sessions. I’ve hosted events where I’m the tour guide where I’m leading people to Seoul Grand Park because I still have this passion for teaching people.

I still have this passion for showing people around things that they haven’t seen before, and I, I just feel really connected to this place. So, I’m still debating whether or not I want to live here. I’m not necessarily committed to that just yet. because the time change here is, is really difficult because a lot of the people that I would be working with for mindfulness are still in the States.

 . So, I like that you and I are at least, you know, similar time zones right here, because otherwise I’m having these outrageously early or late calls with people and it’s, it’s a bit of a challenge. But I have learned and grown so much in during this travel experience that I know that, that the money’s going to run out at some point in time.

I’m going to have to go back to some semblance of, of reality, you know, whatever that is, you know, working full-time. And I’m not looking forward to that. But I am very much staying present in these moments that I’m having with my friends and, now that I’ve enrolled in this mindful teacher certification program, there is some more purpose to this adventure because before it was more about just creating meaningful experiences. But now, now there is a bit of a purpose where I am connecting with people. I’m doing the podcast; I’m being a guest on podcast. I’m leading mindfulness sessions, and that is filling the, the void that was left behind when I resigned from my job.

And being a Dean is really difficult because you’re always the bad guy. You’re always delivering bad news, one of the revelations that I’ve had here in the past few months is that I’m a people pleaser. I never knew that about myself, but then someone pointed that out to me and I was like, oh yeah, I kind of am. And so, I’ve really worked to let go of that. That’s something, that I’ve really, really made a conscious effort to let go of is being this people pleaser. But at the same time, I still want to provide people with enjoyable experiences and I guess life-changing experiences.

So, I think that’s where the mindfulness comes in and the enjoyable experiences is the planning of events that bring people together in a, in a social construct.

Simon: Yeah, you talk about a few Asian countries, it’s a very east versus west, and I imagine, quite a lot of mindfulness happens in places like Korea.

How have you seen it in your day-to-day life and compared to living back in the States?

Mindfulness in different countries

Billy: You know, it’s interesting because, Korea, as far as I understand, is one of the most Christian countries here in, in Asia. So, there is a heavy influence there. I think what I notice more is a desire to do it correctly, and so we have to kind of reframe once again that we’re not looking for a result.

We’re bringing awareness to the process of all of this. So that’s kind of been, the big conversation that I’ve had during this time. There’s one particular person who, who wants to know, am I doing this right? Am I doing this right? And I’m like, hey, are you doing it? Then you’re doing it, right?

 And so just helping. Her reframe that and, and I find that the people who want to join the, the mindfulness, they’ve already done it. or they’re a little bit curious about it, it’s been overall a, a pleasant experience for me and I’m starting to lead it now, as part of my, my certification program doing daily mindfulness practices at, I guess it’s 11:00 AM Korean time, and then 8:00 PM Minnesota time.

So, you know, if people are listening to this episode, I’m not sure when this episode will come out, but they’re always welcome to, to connect with me on Instagram at mindful_midlife_crisis and just see what I’m offering as far as, as those mindfulness sessions, cause right now, right now I’m learning how to do them, so I’m offering them for free because it’s mostly practice for me so that when I do get good, then I can charge here and there, and there’s probably some, contradiction in terms right there.

But, but at the same time too, it is a service that’s being provided. And, I do think it’s a, it’s an investment. You know, I think it’s so important for us to invest in our mental health, especially as men. We need to invest in our mental health because we don’t think about those things. We, gladly slap down a gym membership. Would we slap down some money for a therapy session or for some mindfulness coaching? I don’t know that we would be so inclined to do. And I really think we need that physical wellbeing. But we really need that mental wellbeing too.

Simon: I had this very discussion with a guy over coffee this morning, another dad who I was catching up with, and we were talking around where our priorities are and investing the money in things like therapy or mindfulness, or, self-development.

You know, you know, you think about an average session might be, say between $150 to $200 depending on where you are, that generally is the rate here in Australia. and, a lot of people, they might shy away from spending that money. They’re like, oh, I don’t want to do that, that’s a lot of money for an hour or session with the therapist or a coach or a counsellor, whoever.

But yet they might go out on a Saturday night, spend 200 bucks behind a bar, 200 bucks on an outfit, maybe some money on hotel or taxi home or whatever, and they’re all of a sudden, they’re five, six, $700 in the red. For, for what’s often considered a band aid fix. whereas the, if they went to therapy or mindfulness, got into something like that, or yoga, I like to put yoga in that basket too, then they start to develop the long-term benefits and long-term strategies to, to overcome whatever they’re dealing with.

Whether it’s mental health, physical health, relationship issues, stress, burnout, that’s a big one that’s coming out of Covid as well. I want to take you back to your sabbatical from alcohol as well, because we did touch on that a little bit earlier and, and one of the self, care strategies that I’ve used and a lot of guys use is alcohol.

as a way of, for me, slowing down my brain and, and letting it have some relaxation time, but also if I do go out, it helps to socialize as well. So, I’m interested to, to know about your sabbatical from alcohol and what that looks like and why you do it and, and the benefits from it as well.

Taking a sabbatical from alcohol

Billy: Yeah, so in my twenties and even now, I very rarely ever drink at home.

 I never drink at home, but especially when I was in my twenties, I would go to a restaurant, I’d sit at T G I Fridays with some friends of mine and we would go there two nights a week during the weekdays and then have 2, 3, 4 beers, wake up, feel like shit the next day, try and teach and then go out on the weekends and then get blackout drunk.

And that was, that was my routine from about, I don’t know, age 21 to 30. If I really want to drive myself crazy, I will break down how much money I spent on a monthly basis between the ages of 23 and 30 and just cry because it’s so much money that I could have invested in other ways. Like I could be having this conversation from my palatial palace in Portugal right now.

Had I just invested that money rather than wasting it on alcohol. Ugh. So, I never really drank at home. That’s never ever been a compulsion of mine where I was like, eh, for me it’s more social and you know, I think because I bring this high energy than when I have a few beers in me then, you know, I don’t have a lot of inhibition anyway.

Like I’m, I’m pretty direct with people. I think that’s also off-putting for people, cause especially in the Midwest, people are not used to people being direct. So, you know, I’m, out there. I’m, bodacious like people, know my presence when I enter a room for better or for worse.

And usually when alcohol was involved, it was for the worst because that’s when the obnoxious, behaviour went from, you know, a, a seven to a 10. Right? So, most of it was attention seeking that use of alcohol was attention seeking and was always social because I was always going to be the guy who did or said something that other people couldn’t believe.

And when I turned 30, I didn’t drink as often. But I noticed even still that when I would drink, I wasn’t getting blackout drunk anymore, but I was still, you know, struggling with this depression, this residual depression leftover from this toxic relationship that I had, right when I was, you know, 30, 31, 32 years old.

And after, another failed relationship, this was early 2012. I just, I thought to myself, you know what, I’m going to go six months without drinking. It’s 180 days, so I’m going to do a 180 with my life. And it was October of 2012, because I was feeling, I was feeling awful, like mentally, emotionally.

 I was feeling awful. And I’m like, you know what? I’m just going to cut out alcohol. And I remember one of the turning points for me in, feeling supported in this is I went to a friend’s house and they said, hey, you want, you want something to drink? And I’m like, no, I’m, not drinking here for a while.

And they were like, that’s cool man. Good for you. What a relief that was because these guys like to drink. I’ve seen these guys drink, but they were so supportive of it and that just, that really helped out. And so, then that turned into just saying, you know what, I, I did 180 days. Can I go the rest of the school year without drinking?

And I did. I went through the rest of the school year and I said, okay, now summer break is here. I’m going to see if I can teach myself how to drink socially and drinking socially means I’m only going to have one, two at the most. and only one night, maybe two nights a week. And so, I was able to, to manage that.

And then, you know, I think part of the reason why I was in such a better mood is because I, I met someone and I started, we started dating and we ended up dating for five and a half years. And she’s still my best friend to this day. And, you know, one of the things that I was nervous about telling her was, you know, hey, when the school year starts up, I’m not going to drink.

And, and she was like, okay, whatever. And you know, there were some times there were she was enticing me to, you know, here, have it, have it. And I’m like, no, no, no, no, no. So, we had to have conversations around that. But then she very quickly understood that, no, we’re just not doing that. They were really respectful conversations and they’re just like, you know, this is, this is for me.

I can’t do this. And so, I’m, I’m committing to, to this. And so that was the 20 13 -20 14 school year where I went the entire school year without drinking. And then during the summer I would, you know, I’d have a drink here and there. And then from 2013, 2013, all the way through the 20 20, 20 21 school year, I just did sober school years.

 . So those were kind of my alcohol sabbaticals and, never got drunk, you know, in that time, maybe once, in those, what eight years did I ever get drunk? And I, I just felt so much better and I was able to, I think that’s really was a key component in my growth and, and when it comes to being more mindful, when it comes to being more aware of how I’m presenting myself, that kind of thing, it just felt really good.

And so, then when I went on my, on my trip to Portugal, I was like, well, it’s not a school year. I’m going to go ahead and just enjoy myself. And so, I had drinks and I resigned from my job around November of 2021. And then I found myself in this weird grey area. So, we do an episode, episode 61 with Kari Schwear, where we talk about grey areas, and she talks about grey area drinking.

And I want to say that I was in a, like a grey area drinking phase anymore. I think that’s what I was from about 20 to 33. But I just remember not feeling good, and I remember feeling completely overwhelmed and stressed out about, I don’t have a job now. I have to make this podcast successful. And putting that pressure on myself.

And I, I didn’t like how I felt. And Kari just so happened to be, we did our, our interview with her on February 1st, and I was going to, to Mexico like a week later. And I, and I, I just declared on that episode. I said, you know what, Kari, after having this conversation, I’m not going to drink for the, for a while here.

I think I just need to take another alcohol sabbatical. And so, I went from, from February until, I got back to Seoul in like early June, but then I had a drink on my terms, right? And, even people in soul were like, oh, he doesn’t really drink, and I really respected that. Now this is a drinking culture over here.

It’s really hard not to, and I’m not going to lie, I’ve drank more than what, what I would like to, but again, it’s usually two beers at the most and maybe once a week, So I’ve limited that so that, you know, I can still enjoy myself, but it’s not controlling me. It’s not compelling me, I’m able to say no, I’m able to disappoint people by saying, no, I don’t want to drink and not feel bad about it. So those are all things that I couldn’t do before because I had a reputation to live up to as the wild guy, as the crazy guy. And now I realize that, oh, you know, you can just be a fun dude to be around. You can be an enjoyable person to be around sober, and you don’t even have to have a drink in order to socialize.

Like, that’s never been difficult for me to socialize with people. So, I’ve been able to get that under control and, and it feels good. when I go to Thailand, that’ll be 45 days. I don’t imagine that I’m going to drink there. Like, I, I just don’t have this compulsion to drink, where I used to. And it feels really, really good.

Simon: Yeah, it’s so refreshing having discussions like this with so many guys who, grew up drinking heavily, in Australia here, we can drink from 18 legally. So usually, it’s around 16 definitely through your twenties, into your thirties.

But it’s that 30 mark where they start to go, you know, I don’t want to do this, and I don’t like the way I feel the next day. And a bit groggy. I mean, I’m one of those people that don’t get hangovers, but I feel groggy even though I might not be really sick like some people. but yeah, even myself, as a dad now, I’m like, do I want my kids to see me with a beer in hand as frequently as I was doing?

And, even to the point where they start talking about beer and I’m like, oh, maybe they’re noticing more than I think that they’re noticing as well. And so, very similar. I’ve had a bit of a sabbatical this year and I love how you put little timeframes on it as like little goals, like, I want to get through this period, and then this period can I add on some more?

cause there’s a lot of people out there, myself included, who are a bit all or none. It’s like, I’m not drinking forever. But then your kind of, you know, get to a point where like, oh, it’s okay to drink actually it’s okay to have one or two, like you say, but it’s knowing that limit as well. And some people they shouldn’t drink at all for, for various reasons, but it’s knowing that limit and it’s bringing just mindfulness into that as well.

It’s mindfully being aware of the, the effect of alcohol on us, but also how that, influences our relationships with ourself and other people and how we’re feeling and, and how we’re showing up in a way. And the money, you know, as well. in Australia they’ve made, for example, smoking has become really expensive, through the roof.

And, often I think of the people that do smoke, how can they afford it? You know? You know, and, and, and alcohol I think is moving towards that way as well. It is becoming more and more expensive as well. And, and eventually you might see a lot of, I guess, new generations shying away from all that type of stuff just because of the expense, which not is not a bad thing.

Billy: two things that exacerbated my anxiety the most were my students and alcohol. So, when I was working with one, I didn’t do the other. So, if I was working with students, all right, no alcohol, if I’m going to have alcohol in the summer, then I’m not working with students.

So that’s kind of how I rationalize that. And during that alcohol sabbatical during school years, there were no exceptions. I remember my best friend; I was the best man in his wedding and I had to give the toast and I gave that toast with water. And I remember his wife saying like, wait a minute, did you not drink champagne during the toast at my wedding?

And I’m like, no, I’m not making an exception for you, for him, for anybody that, like, this is for me. And, I was steadfast in that I did not make exceptions for anything. Oh, it’s a special occasion, they’re all special occasions, you know what I mean? and here’s what I have found interesting.

It’s interesting when you tell people, I don’t drink, they leave you alone. But if you have one drink, then the peer pressure of have one more comes in. That is so interesting to me. I was like, Nope, I just want one. Oh, come on, come on. You already had one. Have another one. I’ll, get you one. No, I don’t want one.

But it’s so interesting. Just if you have one, people are more inclined to peer pressure you to have two or three or four. If you tell people, hey, I’m not drinking, they really don’t peer pressure you as much.

So, if you’re out there and you’re listening and you’re like, you know what? I just don’t want to drink tonight. Then don’t, and just tell them, you know what, I’m, I’m not drinking for the next month. And that might be a lie. Who cares it’s not their life, it’s yours.

You can just say, hey, I’m taking a break from drinking, and they’ll leave you alone. That’s been my experience. And the people who don’t leave you alone stop hanging out with him. Like I, that’s what I had to do. I had a friend who continued to pressure me and pressure me, and I really liked this dude.

I liked him a lot, but because he kept doing that, I just cut him out and I was like, I’m, I don’t want this, like, you make, you make my nights where I’m trying to have fun, less fun because I feel like I’m having to, you know, constantly tell you, no, I don’t want this.

Simon: Yeah. we’re seeing, a lot more non-alcoholic beers come onto the market. I’m yet to taste one, I think just because I’m, I’m like, what’s the point?

Billy: I’d rather just drink water and keep the money.

Simon: But we are seeing that, which I guess is a good move society-wise,

 Billy, we could talk all day on mindfulness, but I want to get to some tips now from your experience around how you can live a more mindful life.

and I’m interested in your thoughts around these empty statements. We talked a bit about this off air, like live life with no regrets. Everything happens for a reason, which is one of my wife’s Favorite ones. Follow your passion, which I’ve been talking about follow your passion myself in some of the work I do and, and particularly using my pain as my passion in terms of mental health.

 tell me a bit about your thoughts on these statements and what’s a mindfulness approach to these and what do you tell yourself essentially to, to stay mindful?

Empty Mindfulness quotes and sayings

Billy: well, not to hurt your feelings, but I think all of those are rubbish.

 I think all of these are, are ridiculous, empty, and to a point toxic statement. So, I’ll kind of break down into this, this idea, the live life with no regrets. I would encourage people to check out the book, the Power of Regret by Daniel Pink.

In my opinion, living life with no regrets is too much pressure. It’s the expectation that you need to live your life perfectly. I have a lot of regrets in my life. There are two ways though, that regrets can help you grow. One is by not dwelling in them for so long that they impede progress. So, we have to be mindful of the regrets that we have.

We have to allow ourselves to feel the regret. It’s okay to feel regret. Regret is a human emotion. We should be allowed to feel all human emotion and regret is one of those human emotions. So, allow yourself to feel and then heal from that regret so that you can move forward. You can look at regret as a teacher and say, you know what, I’ll give you a perfect, perfect example.

When I was in Mexico, I was there for three weeks and I had time to stay there longer. And in hindsight, I, I wish that I would have, but I went back because I was people pleasing. I was going back to, to people please, and I wasn’t being true to myself. And I regretted that. And I didn’t want that same feeling.

I didn’t want that same experience when I was in Seoul. So, I extended my trip when I was in Seoul. I used that regret as a teacher. And so, I, I really despise that saying, live life with no regrets because it puts too much emphasis on living your life perfectly. And we’re not going to, we’re going to make mistakes.

We reflect on those mistakes. We learn from them; we grow from them. Everything happens for a reason. Grinds my gears in the moment. So, if I’m going through something in that moment, if you say everything happens for a reason, I want to choke you out because I’m in the emotion. I am in that moment. I want to experience the moment I’m not able to see clearly because I haven’t processed the moment yet.

Now, when I look back on things, do I say to myself, oh, you know what? I guess there was a reason for that. I do, but I don’t say it in the moment cause that, and, and I think too, if people say that when we talk about trauma and we talk about traumatic experiences, I feel like that really, is tone deaf to the experience that that person is having.

And I think we need to allow people to process the experience and come to the, everything happens for a reason, conclusion, on their own, rather than us saying to them, everything happens for a reason. So that’s, that’s, that’s my take on that. And then finally, follow your passion is absolutely terrible, career advice.

It’s terrible career advice because passions are the same as interests. My interests over time have changed the things that I was passionate about when I was younger, I’m not passionate about now. if I followed my passions, I would’ve played major league baseball. Okay. Or I at least tried, but then I would’ve learned very quickly that I wasn’t going to be successful in that.

A better piece of advice rather than follow your passions would be follow your curiosities and follow your strengths. What are you curious about? Because. If you’re following your passion, you’re doing this podcast right now. I’m doing a podcast. We’re both passionate about this podcast. In fact, we’re so passionate about it that we’re paying to do this podcast.

We don’t have sponsored yet. and it’s not that we’re doing it for free. We’re running in the red to do these podcasts, but it’s because we’re so passionate about it. I imagine that you have learned so much about podcasting when it comes to scheduling, when it comes to, editing, when it comes to hosting, when it comes to the organization of it, when it comes to the marketing of it.

Listen, if you weren’t passionate about all the work that goes around it, you wouldn’t do it., and that’s what people forget when they’re talking about passions, is they just see the fun. They just see the fun of the passion. They don’t see the work. So, when we’re putting in the work, we’re chasing our curiosity.

We’re sharpening our strengths, and we’re sharpening other skills, so that we can continue to enhance that strength, that we can continue to build on that curiosity. I don’t think we should follow our passions cause passions are fleeting. So, I think we should follow our strengths. We should follow our curiosity because that then, and the curiosity is the open mind.

 . And when we talk about mindfulness, we’re inviting curiosity, we’re inviting openness, we’re inviting the mystery so that we can explore. Whereas, when we have a passion and, and that’s not to say that we shouldn’t have passions, that we shouldn’t be passionate about it. It’s just really terrible career advice when we follow our passions.

I would say that you are following your curiosity around mental health because you want to learn more about mental health and you’re passionate about learning more around it. So, you’re willing to put more work into building upon that curiosity. That’s how I would spin it. That’s, how I look at it.

I, when I see people say, follow your dreams, follow your passions. If, anyone out there is listening and you are invited to give a high school graduation speech, please for everything holy. Do not tell students to follow their passions. Tell ’em to learn to discover their strengths and follow those and to pursue them with curiosity.

That’s way better advice.

Simon: I love it. And I’m going to throw another one at you, is go with the flow I know you love this one.

Billy: So, we’re laughing at this because we talked about this very passionately. So, there are people out there, I’ll give you an example now, when I was at the, the surf camp in Dakar, Senegal, surfers are the epitome of go with the flow because they have to be, because they’re going with the flow of the wave.

I admire surfers so much. Me, I’m a paddle boarder. So, you know, yes, I’m going along with the waves, that kind of thing. But, not to the same intensity and not with the same flow as surfers do. I am someone who likes, and I talked about this before, I like structure, so I build in routines throughout my day.

Having structure with flexibility

Billy: so that I have that structure, but within that structure I create flexibility. So why I worked in education, bells told me when the day starts. Bell told me when class ended. Bells told me when my day ended, but within that I had autonomy and flexibility to do what I wanted to do with my lessons. So, I like building out schedules.

I actually take great joy in building schedules. I take great joy in planning. So, when people tell me, go with the flow, they often do it without getting to know me. I don’t think go with the flow is bad advice. In fact, I think that it can be good advice. If you know the person and if you understand the person and saying, you know, maybe let go with some of that, because go with the flow is definitely part of mindfulness, right?

 to allow the experience to come. I like to create a container in which I can experience something because I often struggled during the summer break because I didn’t have that kind of structure, because I struggle with the paradox of choice. If I have too many options, I, it’s paralysis by analysis for me, like that’s why I had to book the, the travel plans that this morning because I’m like, if I don’t do this now, I’m just going to continue to put it off and put it off and put it off to me.

That’s where procrastination is bred, right? So, if you’re a go with the flow person, I envy you, this is not in any way, shape, or form an attack on you. Just please understand that there are people like me who like structure, and that structure brings me joy in the same way that go with the flow brings you joy.

That’s why I don’t travel with, go with the flow people, go with the flow people, make me late, go with the flow people are not ready to go at eight in the morning when I am ready to go at eight in the morning. I have already booked our train tickets. Let’s go. and we’re going to get there early too. And if people are like, you don’t sound very fun to travel with,

that’s why I travel alone.

Simon: It reminded me of my kids actually. They’re very go with the flow. I’m very structured. So, they never walk out the door on time.

Billy: Yeah. and like I said, I envy that and when I see people who are go with the flow, they are reminders to me to let go of expectations, to let go of the strangle hold of control that I have, right?

And so, if I have the strangle hold on, the things that I’m trying to control, then that’s when I start to stress out more. And so, then if I’m too, go with the flow, then I stress out as well. So again, when we talk about mindfulness, we talk about balance. And for me that balance is creating that container and the flexibility within that container because that brings me joy and you know, the reason why I get so heated about that, is because a couple weeks ago I was telling somebody that I had met when I was out and about at one of the meetup groups about my trip. I was like, yeah, I’m, you know, I’m here till December 30th, and then I go to Thailand for 45 days, and then I’m going to Singapore for a week, and then I’m going to Japan for 10 weeks, and then I’m coming back here.

And he said, well, that’s your problem. You’re doing it wrong. And I go, excuse me. And he said, you’re traveling wrong. And I’m like, it’s my travel dickhead. Like, why are you saying that I’m traveling wrong? This is how I like to travel. You didn’t even ask me any questions before you came to that conclusion.

Now, I was mindful in a moment, and I didn’t call him a dickhead, but it’s what I thought. It’s what I thought. I responded rather than reacted. And that that is evidence that my mindfulness is improving or is helping me manage my, my emotions because old Billy might have responded in a much different way.

Simon: I love it. That’s a great, it’s a great story. and, for me, perfectionism was a huge thing in my career

 and discovering mindfulness is helping me. Just, I’m really embracing this concept called Wabi Sabi and the beauty and imperfection and allowing things to be imperfect.

Like my kids being a little bit late out the door, and they’re only young. They’re only three and five. But I’ve got a timetable that I’ve, try to meet and as I get older, I’m trying to embrace that more just so that I can, as you said before, kind of give away some of that control that have been grasping on with white knuckles for 15 years in my career.

and what I felt like was what I needed to, work effectively and be effective. But I find that the more mindful I become, the more effective I am because I can know when to let something slide and what to go into bat for as well. but it’s a working process cause my wife often says, you got to let that one slide, but you keep rocking up to bat.

So, but anyway, that’s a work in progress.

I’m mindful that we could talk forever and it seems like we are one of the same people and, and a lot of the things that we’ve come across over the years and how we’re responding to it. So, thinking about the audience out there, what’s something that you do on a day to day that they could potentially use from a mindfulness perspective to, I guess get more energy or maximize time better?

What’s something that you like to do and you find it’s helpful to share as well?

Scripting a routine

Billy: Yeah. as I mentioned, I’m a routine guy. I like having my routine and with that being said, if my routine is disrupted, then it kind of throws me off a little bit. That’s something that I am working on, is allowing a little bit more flexibility within my day so that if my routine is disrupted, that it doesn’t completely throw off my entire day.

That’s something that I’m really working on, but routines are important to me, so getting up around the same time and doing I’m a big believer that the first 90 minutes of your day should be scripted. It reminds me of the success that San Francisco 49ers, American football head coach, Bill Walsh, they used to script their first 24 plays of the game.

Now, there would be some flexibility within there that would be situational, but for the most part, they had those first 24 plays scripted. Now, if you’re thinking like 24 plays, that, that’s a lot of plays. It is. It really is a lot of plays, especially if, you’re going three, three and out quite a bit.

But I’m a big believer in the first 90 minutes being scripted. Now, those 90 minutes include every detail around getting ready and if you’re going to work, it includes the commute, it includes when you get to work. So, I’ll give you an example. When I was at my highest functioning, I would wake up around 6:00 AM and then I would go and take a shower.

And in that shower, I used to have what’s called a Calsonic. It’s this facial vibrating facial brush. they clean your face for a minute. What I would do with that minute is I would take that facial brush and I would put it on my forehead and I would say forehead, right temple, right jaw, chin.

And I would just focus on where I was with the facial brush, and that allowed me to slow down those early morning thoughts and just focus on the sensation of that brush for one minute, and then I would get ready and a part of getting ready, I would do like a 10 or 15 minute mobility routine because I’m getting older, I’m getting a little rickety, and I just kind of wanted to warm up my body, especially when it came to be wintertime.

I just wanted to have my body warmed up because I knew that I was probably either going to be doing a lot of sitting, or I was going to be doing a lot of standing depending on whatever the lesson was that day. And then, you know, just downing a, a glass of water. These are all things that take very little time, but if you do them on a routine basis, they just become ingrained as part of your routine.

 And then one thing that I started doing was on my drive to work, which was about 25 minutes, I had an iPod that had about 8,000 songs on it. So, one thing that I would do is, rather than try and find the perfect song, I would take that decision out of my hands and I would just let shuffle play whatever song came on.

And what I would try and do then is I’d try to remember what anywhere, usually between five to eight songs were played during that commute. And then I would write them on my board as kind of a memory routine. If it was a really heavy punk rock day, there’d be like 10 songs I’d have to remember. But then sometimes you’d get those hidden tracks that it was the song and then, you know, on like the old school CDs where you had a hidden track, there was the song and then there was 25 minutes of silence. And then there was a 32nd song that didn’t need to be there, but it was if we just, you know, so then I would sit with the one song for the three, four minutes, it was, and then just drive in silence because I wasn’t going to skip that song because that’s not what the iPod wanted.

I wasn’t going to give in to instant gratification. I was just going to let whatever came on the iPod play, and then I would use that as a memory building routine. And then I would get to work at about 7:30 that was my 90 minutes. So that would set the tone Then mentally for my day and physically a little bit too, I would also,

 include, like a 10-minute mindfulness practice in there before I would leave for work. So, the mindfulness practice and mobility routine that would add in an extra 20 minutes. I probably could have slept an extra 20 minutes, but sleeping in that extra 20 minutes never made me feel any better than the mindfulness and the mobility routine.

I always felt better if I did that. So, I would encourage people out there listening to develop a routine for your first 90 minutes of the day. It’s so crucial that you start those 90 minutes off in a way that sets you up for productive success, in some capacity. And then this is something that I just started doing recently.

I’m not a big fan of to-do lists because in my opinion, to-do lists, just keep you busy. So, I created this thing called chips list. So, here’s what chips means. CHIPS means complete, this thing has to get completed today. It cannot be pushed until tomorrow. It has to get completed today. And then the H stands for hooray. Because you should celebrate your completions, you should celebrate your accomplishments. And it doesn’t have to be immediate. It can be something like, hey, I’m going to grab a slice of cake later. I’m going to go on a date with my wife later. Just something like that. Something where you’re budgeting time for you.

 And I don’t think it should be something like the gym. I don’t think that should be a reward. I think the gym should be part of your daily routine. So, I would look for it as like things that you can treat yourself with. I would caution people using alcohol as the treat as well,

But just something that you’re going to do. Maybe you got a Favorite TV show, and that’s what you’re going to watch that tonight, but if you don’t get through that chips list, if you don’t see, if you don’t get through that completion list, then hey, that you don’t get to watch that tonight until you get those completion lists done.

And then the I p s, is in progress or start, those are things that you’re just moving along. You’re just trying to progress those. So, you know, things don’t have to get dire until they’re in that C list. And sometimes, you know, the C list doesn’t have to be, something that you procrastinate. You’re like, oh, this, this has to get done today.

It can just be something that you no longer want to deal with. And you’re like, I’m doing this today and I’m not going to do anything else that’s in the I P S section until I get this done. So that, that’s something that’s helped me out because then I’m able to look back on it and be like, oh, I, I actually accomplished quite a bit.

I can also look back it and be like, did I do this thing the other day? Oh yeah, I did. So, you know, just again, as a structure guy, these are things that I would highly encourage is creating this routine and when you do a time inventory of your morning, you can see where your time leaks are and you can close those up.

I don’t have enough time in the morning. You actually might have more time than you think, and so where can we close up those time leaks? Maybe you only have time for a five-minute meditation, but that five-minute meditation, may be the start that you need in order to see where your other time leaks are, maybe it that’ll just set your mindset so that you can be productive, that you can be more successful in the for the rest of your day.

Simon: I hate to do list, but I love chips, so, I think that might stick

Billy: if there are potato chips in the room, I’m eating them. I am absolutely eating them.

Simon: But I like that comment you made around, if you slept in for another 20 minutes, you still feel like crap. But if you went to bed 20 minutes earlier, and still wake up at the same time. that actually does feel really good and you’re not sitting in bed, searching through Instagram or TikTok or whatever.

You’re actually just putting the phone down and going to sleep. I’ve noticed when I go to bed earlier, I wake up at the same time. the kids are pretty much consistent risers. So, that’s the benefit of having kids. You don’t need an alarm clock. but going to bed early, I do feel better for it as opposed to trying to get that extra 20 minutes because you don’t actually sleep for 20 minutes.

You just sit there trying to get to sleep and then stressing you out cause you’re not sleeping.

Billy: And, and that 20 minutes actually might be better served as a meditation time instead, you know, when you roll over, rather than grabbing the phone to scroll, roll over, grab the phone and set a meditation, and then that might be where you get that time in for your meditation.

I’ll even take it a step further. When I was working in education, a lot of times you know, I would come back from lunch and when I came back from lunch, I would do a 10-minute meditation before my afternoon classes. What I found was if I did the meditation, I always felt so much better than if I looked at my to-do list at that time and was like, I don’t have time for this.

I need to plough through this. I would be completely wiped out by the time the last class would show up. Whereas if I had the same amount of work to do, but if I took that 10 minute, I actually found that I was able to get through that 10 minute faster and I was more productive and I felt significantly better when that last class rolled around.

So again, it comes down to that investment. You might think that you don’t have the time for it, but you might need to build the time for it because you’ll get that time back, or you’ll get that energy back.

Simon: Really enjoy this I love how we’ve talked about mindfulness from a, from a different perspective, not so much therapeutic, and a lot of the stuff that we have talked about is therapeutic in its nature, but also, it’s just, it’s life.

It’s, navigating life and trying to live, I guess, a more meaningful life amongst the chaos that has been happening, in most people’s lives, particularly with Covid and all that type of stuff. Billy, how can people find you, like if they’re looking to, to learn more about you?

 I’ll include the links in the show notes, but yeah, plug, plug the podcast in anywhere else that people can find you?

How to connect with Billy Lahr

Billy: Yeah, people can go to www.mindfulmidlifecrisis.com. You can join the newsletter group there. Just click on contacts and sign up there. We send out weekly meditations so that you can kind of get a feel for what those are like in case you’re looking to dabble in those.

I’m on Instagram at mindful_midlife_crisis. We have a Facebook page, Mindful Midlife Crisis Podcast. You can email me at mindfulmidlifecrisis@gmail.com. You know, one of these things that, the podcast is available wherever you get your podcast.

But, you know, you were talking about navigating this journey very much the podcast is about me navigating this midlife crisis, more mindfully, and the podcast, it, it’s a bit selfish in in some regards because I’m bringing on people that I want to talk to and I imagine you get a lot of guests who reach out to you and say, hey, I’d like to be on your show.

And I get a lot of guests that want to be on my show as well. I prioritize people that I want to talk to because I feel like they’re helping me navigate this midlife pivot, I guess, more mindfully. And I imagine there are people out there like me who are going through this as well, and especially if you listen to the summer sessions.

So, summer sessions one through, I would say seven. You can hear this transition in my journey and I really hope my story resonates with people, and I get it, I’m not necessarily relatable to people in the sense that I’m not a dad and I’m not married. I’m traveling around right now, like I, I’m, quote unquote living the dream, so to speak.

 I get that, that doesn’t make me relatable to a lot of people, but that’s why I’m really intentional with the guests that I choose, because though the conversations I have sometimes are for me, my guess is that the conversations that I’m having with people, The listeners resonate with their stories and their expertise and take away that experience.

And I’m very excited that you’re going to be a guest on the show, and I’m excited to have that conversation so we can continue this, I mean, you’re right, we could have talked, we could have had a Joe Rogan style episode here going four hours. So, you know, if you want part two of this episode, you can go and check out my show where, where Simon and I continue this conversation.

Simon: Absolutely. And, you’re right, being a podcaster as well, it’s nice to have people on there that I guess share a similar journey as well and are interested in the same thing because you’re building that like-minded community for people to tune into. but also, it’s great to be able to do this across the world as well and hear stories from across the seas or the lands and so forth.

It’s actually quite rare that I speak to Australians I speak to more people from overseas. and I love it because it’s showing different cultures and perspectives and histories and all that and how that influences how we’re showing up today as people. So, but in the last question I’ll ask you before I let you go is I always like my guest to plug something that makes them feel good.

So, it doesn’t have to be anything to do with mindfulness, but it’s just something you’re reading or listening to watching or even a self-care activity or whatever, and maybe it might inspire some of our listeners to go and try it for themselves.

Billy’s Recommendation

Billy: That’s a really good question. So, I would strongly encourage people to check out the Jordan Harbinger Show. It’s another podcast. He, he’s fantastic. Like, that’s the show that I’m emulating. That’s the quality of show that I’m trying to get to someday. I would say, try a chip’s list, and if you need help with the chips list or you need help creating some structure in, in your day, let me know.

 that actually brings me a lot of joy is having those kinds of conversations. I’d love to connect with any of your listeners out there who just want a little bit more structure. You can hear how structure oriented I am and how much that helps me. And it’s not to say that I have the magic fix for, for you, but maybe we can sit down and we can have that conversation.

I also think too, creating a good mood playlist on your Spotify. So, my Favorite band is Pearl Jam. I’ve seen Pearl Jam 50 times in nine different countries. So, I’m very passionate about Pearl Jam, right? So, I take a deep interest in, in Pearl Jam, I love music from that era, from the grunge era, right?

The thing is, a lot of its kind of dark, and a lot of it talks about, you know, you listen to Alice in Chains, you know, you listen to the lyrics of Dirt and you listen to the lyrics of Nutshell. Those are some pretty intense lyrics, right? And they serve a purpose, you know, they elicit a mood, but you should also have a good mood playlist and that good mood playlist should be all the songs that you are embarrassed to let people know that you enjoy

So, on my good mood playlist party in the U S A by Miley Cyrus is on there and when it plays, I dance, Is mm-bop by Hanson on there? Absolutely. It’s on there. So, they’re just songs that are so silly, safety dance, men without Hats. Absolutely on my good mood playlist because when I hear it, it makes me laugh at how ridiculous of these songs they are, but yet they, elicit this good mood.

I can’t help but smile and laugh when I hear them. I can’t help but, you know, just dance around silly while I hear them try making a good mood playlist and, and maybe that’s what you listen to on your way to work, or maybe that’s what you listen to on your way home so that you can ramp up that energy so that you can meet people with the energy that they, deserve right from, from you.

So, check that out. It might work. And if you need suggestions for good songs, let me know because I’ve got all the sweet jams.

Simon: I love that notion because it reminded my own journey as well. And growing up when I was in my darkest days, I would listen to a lot of heavy metal like Korn, Metallica, System of a Down, Limp Bizkit, you know, these big heavy metal bands.

But then when I started to step myself out of those dark days, I was more intentionally listened to things like Jack Johnson and John Butler Trio and those types of guys, because it was just more soothing. And I noticed a feeling change in me, like I felt more relaxed, even though I still love, you know, if I’m feeling stressed or anxious and I want to hit that treadmill, I’m happy to listen to System of a Down or Metallica or whatever cause it gets me going.

But often I turn more to softer music these days just for that mood boost and that calming thing. But when you were talking about the Miley Cyrus, cause that’s on my positive playlist as well. I love that song. My wife laughs at me all the time, is Mariah Carey, every, it’s Christmas, so, you know, Mariah Carey comes up every year and it’s not so much the Christmas songs, it reminds me of the first CD I ever had.

And it was a birthday gift from a girl, from school, and it was Mariah Carey’s Daydream. So anytime Mariah Carey comes on, I just get this good feeling about my first CD and, and I quietly sing to myself in the car.

Billy: Oh, that’s fantastic.

Simon: But anyway, Billy, I’ll let you go. We’re going to, take two of this for when I come on your podcast in a little while as well. And, and I think both episodes will probably come out similar timing, so that might be nice as well.

but thanks so much for coming on and being mindful with me. I’ve really enjoyed our chat and, and I look forward to catching up very soon.

Billy: Yeah, this was a lot of fun. Thank you, Simon. I really appreciate it.